


Forty-Two Declarations of Purity

by Niki



Category: The Mummy Series
Genre: Ancient Egyptian Religion - Freeform, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Femslash, Memories, Misses Clause Challenge, Regret, The real Book of the Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:13:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8885224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/pseuds/Niki
Summary: Nefertiri doesn't know where Anck-su-Namun is buried, cannot visit the tomb to pay her respects, had she got any. All she has are memories and pain.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Barbed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barbed/gifts).



> Based on the “negative confession” found in the Egyptian tomb writings, using E. A. Wallis Budge's translation from the Papyrus of Ani.
> 
> I hope this isn't too angsty for you! But the idea pretty much clobbered me in the head after reading your letter and I had to try to make it work.

Nefertiri kneels in the temple of the God of the Dead and prays, whether for the dead woman, or the person she thought she was – her sometime lover, sometime rival, murderess and adulteress. Custom gives words when there are none, but her mind cannot stay with the familiar words of the Book of the Dead.

She can hardly get further than the first declaration of purity before bitter laughter forces its way from her lips. 

**1\. I have not committed sin.**

The words are what would be carved in Anck-su-Namun's tomb, had she got one, words that might one day get carved in Nefertiri's own tomb. But she can never own them, cannot face the weighing of her heart with anything but dread. She is sure Anck-su-Namun couldn't, either.

**2\. I have not committed robbery with violence.**

This, this she can give her. She doesn't think Anck-su-Namun ever sunk that low. But the next one...

**3\. I have not stolen.**

Anck-su-Namun stole her father, stole her purity, stole her breath, stole her heart with almost violent desire, was that applicable? Was that one more sin the dead murderess would have to own up to, at her own weighing? Would she even find the way, without instructions surrounding her mummy? She was not of the faith originally, would she get lost in the way?

**4\. I have not slain men and women.**

Her own tomb will never carry these words, nor would Anck-su-Namun's have, had she had a proper one. Soldier's tombs never do, and if they are something, they are soldiers. Their skills were never meant to be just ceremonial, which is why losing to the other woman time and time again was so humiliating. If she couldn't defeat someone who was not trying to kill her in earnest, how could she ever defeat people who were?

**5\. I have not stolen grain.**

As a hungry orphan from the desert, what does she know of things Anck-su-Namun did in her youth to survive? She just knows it made her grow up as an opportunist, willing to do anything for her own fleeting desire – and gave her the tools to gain what ever she did desire. Even her, oh Gods of Thebes, even her.

**6\. I have not purloined offerings.**

The disregard the older woman always had for the holy, she wouldn't be surprised.

**7\. I have not stolen the property of the gods.**

With Nefertiri's sacred duty to guard the bracelet, _she_ was property of the gods, and Anck-su-Namun had definitely stolen her. Stolen kisses, caresses, moans and cries, nights and nights of it.

**8\. I have not uttered lies.**

Nefertiri laughs, bitterly and loud, because the other woman was nothing but lies. Lies to her, lies to her father, lies to her own lover. And were they really the only ones? Was she truthful to herself? Or wasvshe the most truthful of them all, her only loyalty to her own self, her own wants? She knew what she wanted and went for it, regardless of the consequences – she lived her own Truth. And she died for it too.

**9\. I have not carried away food.**

She never realised how obsessive the Declarations were on food. The thought gives her a brief reprieve from her pain and regrets.

**10\. I have not uttered curses.**

The regrets burst into memories of Anck-su-Namun's pretty, moist mouth uttering curses as she reached her climax, time and time again in her arms, sweet, murmured oaths as she used the hilt of her sword to claim her, the sacrilegious cries for gods as they came together, in the fight or in lust, and the memories are painful but yet make her body ache. It was a glorious freedom Anck-su-Namun showed her, not only the darkness.

**11\. I have not committed adultery, I have not lain with men.**

Anck-su-Namun sure lay with her share of men, and must have done so even before the king, of that Nefertiri is sure, even as her father believed to be the only one to possess her like a god lives in a temple.

Nefertiri has not – well, she has committed adultery, touching a woman not hers in the eyes of gods – but no man has ever possessed her, nor will they. Maybe another woman could give her what the dead conspirer had but she will never find out, she will dedicate her life to her sacred duty, gods of life and death be her witness.

**12\. I have made none to weep.**

While Anck-su-Namun was alive Nefertiri never cried for her, not when she saw the glance she shared with Imhotep and knew she was untrue not only to her father but to her as well. Not when she beat her. Not when she fucked her. But dead, and dead a traitor, she has managed what she couldn't alive – this one night Nefertiri allows herself the tears.

**13\. I have not eaten the heart.**

No, she doesn't think Anck-su-Namun had a moment of remorse in her life.

**14\. I have not attacked any man.**

She can still see it, the grotesque shadows of the drama unfolding, like a play the paid performers put up in the courtyard. Knife slicing through her father, hands holding it knowing just where to hit to silence the cry, to steal the breath, to kill fast and quiet. 

The king had not been the first man Anck-su-Namun had killed, Nefertiri is sure of it, but he is the one that will doom her to perish in the afterlife – you do not kill a living god and live.

**15\. I am not a man of deceit.**

No, but for sure a woman of it.

**16\. I have not stolen cultivated land.**

All the gifts she had been given, all the riches? Wasn't it a theft if you acquired them with lies, lies of loyalty, of fidelity, of love? The king had showered his young mistress with gifts, and she was to be given the greatest of them all, a marriage, a throne, what more could she have wanted?

But Anck-su-Namun always followed her own fleeting desires. To her, to him – or had she really loved Imhotep, as she couldn't lover Nefertiri?

**17\. I have not been an eavesdropper.**

No, possibly never so much as Nefertiri herself, standing frozen on her balcony, her jealous eyes following the assignation turned assassination. 

**18\. I have slandered no man.**

_“Phuh,” she spat out one night. “It is not like his majesty can even fuck me properly.”_

_“That's my father you're talking about!”_

_“Good for you, that means you don't need to suffer from his efforts. Whack-whack-whack-whack-I can't spill.”_

_“That's a living god you're slandering,” Nefertiri admonished, but her grin gave her away and the other woman pulled her back on top of her._

_“I'd rather be a goddess myself. Come. Worship me with your mouth.”_

She did. Hathor keep her, she had. 

**19\. I have not been angry without just cause.**

_“What was that?”'_

_“What?”_

_“I saw you!”_

_“We were fighting, you were supposed to see me. If you saw me better, maybe you'd win one day.”_

_“The look you shared. You love him.”_

_“Hmmm?”_

_“Imhotep. The high priest.”_

_“Oh. Yes, well. He is... a presence.”_

_“You **love** him!”_

_“Do I? And what do you know of love, Golden Lady? You have been consecrated to gods.”_

**20\. I have not debauched the wife of any man.**

She does belong to the gods, her life dedicated to service, and anyone who touches her should be struck down – but she had joined Anck-su-Namun willingly in her bed, and she had been thoroughly debauched. Yet despite her willingness to co-operate with her own defiling, this is also a sin her dead lover has against her in the afterlife.

**21\. I have not debauched the wife of any man.**

They really liked this one, having to proclaim it to two different gods. So maybe it will count twice against her?

**22\. I have not polluted myself.**

Nefertiri never touched herself before she had been touched by another. She cannot even think of the pleasure of the flesh now, with the grief and anger too strong. But in her dreams she has loved again, has felt the joys of her body again, and wakes up longing for the touch of another. 

And she's sure this is another declaration Anck-su-Namun cannot repeat.

**23\. I have terrorized none.**

Living, no, but now, dead, she terrorizes Nefertiri's dreams, her waking thoughts, batters her mind with regrets and hateful longing. She hopes Thoth and Anubis won't let her get away with any of it.

**24\. I have not transgressed the Law.**

The doomed pair was tried and found guilty of the first crime, and their bodies should have burnt like common thieves. But there is worse than oblivion, there is the ancient curse no criminal had ever been punished with, and it was thought his punishment should be worse than anyone's had ever been. 

Anck-su-Namun was almost forgotten. She was an afterthought to his crime, but Nefertiri knows better. She knew the ruthless mind and ambition of the slave girl turned concubine. In someone else the ambition could have found its fruition with a child born to the king, finding influence through a son learning to rule. But not Anck-su-Namun. Not Ihaya of the desert. She wanted it all, and thought she could cheat death to acquire it. 

**25\. I have not been wroth.**

By the gods, is there anything on the list she can even imagine the other woman uttering without sarcasm?

**26\. I have not shut my ears to the words of truth.**

_“You should be careful – my father is not a blind man, nor yet in his dotage.”_

**27\. I have not blasphemed.**

Just touching her so intimately was blasphemy. All the harsh words in the temples, all the nibbled offerings, all the disrespect to the Horus on the throne who would have made her Queen. No, Anck-su-Namun would not have this one either.

**28\. I am not a man of violence.**

Did Anck-su-Namun enjoy the violence? She sure enjoyed the sparring they did, enjoyed the power it gave her to defeat Nefertiri, and their coupling often resembled their fights. But there was never the humiliation in it when Nefertiri 'lost', when she surrendered to the pleasure – but never to Anck-su-Namun.

**29\. I am not a stirrer up of strife (or a disturber of the peace).**

The almost violent struggle for power that followed her actions – their actions, the fights in the yard, the plots in the harem. Nefertiri will never be happier to see the last of Thebes, to take up her own duty. 

In the capital the priests and priestesses try hanging on to their own power, their own rules, even without a new king settled on the throne. As soon as her brother is settled, she will be gone. By that time the seventy two days will be over, her royal father laid to rest. Maybe her brother can calm the storm, and placate the gods and their interpreters. He is magnificent, even as he is young, a soldier and a war hero already. He will do fine. 

**30\. I have not acted with undue haste.**

Again the reverse could be the motto of the dead woman. She was always acting in haste, judging in haste, following her own desires. And it wasn't always wrong, the two of them hadn't had what they did if Anck-su-Namun wasn't impulsive enough to kiss her that one time, having her on her back on the palace floor, right after a sparring practice.

And after everything, everything she regrets, Nefertiri still cannot regret that kiss, and all the pleasure that followed, cannot regret the other woman showing her the heights of paradise in flesh, the freedom of feeling.

**31\. I have not pried into matters.**

Oh, that for once she can see – Anck-su-Namun had not cared enough of other people and their lives.

**32\. I have not multiplied my words in speaking.**

Her words had been honeyed but like her strikes, economic – she only used as much as she needed. And she didn't need much for a reaction, sometimes she had not needed more than a look to have Nefertiri follow her wherever she wished them to go.

**33\. I have wronged none, I have done no evil.**

Was it evil, Nefertiri wonders, or pure thoughtlessness? Anck-su-Namun only went after what she wanted, and even though that had led to pain for others, the pain was never her goal, she was sure of it. In the end it led her to murder, but even that had not been motivated by her desire to kill but her desire to be free.

**34\. I have not worked witchcraft against the King.**

Was it just the glow of her skin, the fire in her eyes that bewitched the ruler so? Or had she entered the country with the enchantments of her native lands, and used them to ensnare to most powerful of men? Was that why Nefertiri herself had fallen? 

But no, she would not shift blame. It was no more than the magic of her bright eyes, smooth skin, a challenging smile – it was the promise of pleasure in her form, the desire on her tongue.

**35\. I have never stopped the flow of water.**

When the lean years came, Anck-su-Namun knelt on the temple floor with them, and prayed for water. Maybe she prayed for the gods of her youth, but she prayed, and she counted on the Nile to give them life every year, just as they all do. She would never bar the stream from reaching the fields.

But had she been but a farmer's wife? Yes, Nefertiri could see her directing the flow to their own fields, at the expense of their neighbours. 

**36\. I have never raised my voice, spoken arrogantly, or in anger.**

Anck-su-Namun rarely needed to raise her voice, but she seldom spoke without arrogance. In the throes of passion she was free of it, but it always surfaced in the aftermath. But with the skills she had, it must have been hard not to feel arrogant. 

**37\. I have not cursed or blasphemed God.**

Did she mock Imhotep's sacred duties as she had Nefertiri's? But the longer they spent together, the more the mocking felt like teasing.

**38\. I have not acted with evil rage.**

Was it rage that led to the murder of the king? Nefertiri had witnessed it, and Anck-su-Namun had not seemed angry. Determined, yes, but not even desperate. Was it planned? Or was she a cornered rat fighting for her life? 

But rage? No, nor hatred. Inconvenience. 

**39\. I have not stolen the bread of the gods.**

_“That's a sacrifice to the gods!”_

_“And they are not here, and I am hungry. Besides, aren't you holy? You can gift me it.”_

**40\. I have not carried away the khenfu cakes from the spirits of the dead.**

And no one will give her cakes, no weeping mothers to bake them, not priests to anoint them. Only Nefertiri, and her memories of laughter and touch.

**41\. I have not snatched away the bread of the child, nor treated with contempt the god of my city.**

_“It is not my city. My city is made of mud and reeds, watched over by gods you couldn't name.”_

**42\. I have not slain the cattle belonging to the god.**

What started as a contemplation of Anck-su-Namun meeting with the god Thoth and the weighing of her heart, was about herself as well, wasn't it? Nefertiri, her eager partner in crime – mischief – sin.

With her hands on her breast, her knees on the ground, her head bowed so low her hair touches the ground at the feet of the statue of Osiris, she weeps, for her father, for her love, and doesn't believe her own words any more than those she has placed in the mouth of Anck-su-Namun, as the rituals for the dead demand.

_“I have not sinned, I have not sinned, I have not sinned.”_


End file.
